No More Whales' Tails For Her Majesty

Pity the modern monarch, whose fate it is to see ancient privileges chipped away, and no new ones substituted. Last week, Britain's House of Lords debated "The Wild Creatures and Forests Bill." which will deprive Queen Elizabeth II of a slew of prerogatives, some dating to the 13th century reign of Edward I. Most notable was her right to claim the tail of any whale washed up on the shores of England or Wales, or of any whale washed up in Scotland that proved too large to be dragged off on a "wain with six oxen."

Lord Hailsham, the Lord Chancellor, hastened to assure Her Majesty that the ancient right was of no real benefit to her. "There is an agreeable tradition," said Hailsham, "that the head [of a beached whale] was for the king, the body for the fisherman and the tail for the queen. This was based upon an anatomical fallacy, because it was supposed that the whalebone, which was used for the royal corsets, was in the tail. In fact it is in the head of a whale."

Nor should the Queen be grievously affected by her loss of rights to hunt wherever she pleases, or to claim any sturgeon caught within her realm. The last sturgeon to be caught in British waters was indeed presented to the Queen in 1970, but the fish is rather scarce and besides, the Lord Chancellor whimsically suggested, it is in the process of being replaced as a delicacy "perhaps by canned tuna."

In all, the Lords decided that seven pages of royal rights should be abrogated at the suggestion of the Law Commission, which was set up in 1965 to modernize Britain's statute books. Hailsham lavishly praised the commission for "unearthing this extraordinary piece of almost archaeological law." Some archaisms endure. Under a common law that never got into the statute books. Queen Elizabeth retains her royal prerogative over approximately 19,000 "wild, white and unmarked swans." That was only fitting, he said, because it "enables Her Majesty to make highly cherished gifts to foreign heads of state"--as she did in 1968 when she presented a pair of swans to then-President Arthur da Costa e Silva of Brazil. That is about the only practical use left for the beautiful bird. Once it was considered a great delicacy at the royal table, but, said the Lord Chancellor, it has been "superseded by the alien turkey."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.